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PARK STREET 


JVew and Old 


N the first of May, 1923, Messrs. 
Houghton Mifflin Company will 
move from the premises at Number 
4 Park Street, which they have oc¬ 
cupied for forty-three years, into the 
larger and more convenient building 
at Number 2 Park Street, that has 
been remodeled for their occupancy. 
Early in 1924, as soon as the expiration of the present 
leases make it possible, the Old Corner Book Store will 
move from its present location at 27 Bromfield Street 
into the ground floor and basement of the new Houghton 
Mifflin building, though it will remain as before an en¬ 
tirely separate business organization. This move is of 
special interest as a reunion after a separation of more 
than half a century; for from 1828 until 1865, the direct 
predecessors of the Old Corner Book Store and of 
Houghton Mifflin Company occupied together the his- 

















2 


Park Street and Old 


toric building at the corner of School and Washington 
Streets. Their coming together again on Park Street is a 
notable event in the history of that short, but distin¬ 
guished acclivity. 

There is, perhaps, no other single block in Boston 
more intimately associated with forces that have made 
for intellectual leadership than the hundred yards that 
run from Brimstone Corner to the Shaw Monument. 
From Park Street Church at the corner, described by 
Henry James as “perfectly felicitous,” one passes 
Number i, the site of the old mansion of the Wiggles- 
worths, leaders alike in Puritan theology and the Cal¬ 
cutta trade; and Number 2, occupied for three quarters 
of a century by Dr. John C. Warren and his son. Dr. 
Jonathan Mason Warren, to whom Boston medicine 
owes much. By a queer coincidence, it was at Number 

2, after the erection of the present building in 1878, that 
the Christian Science faith had its inception. Number 

3, long the hospitable residence of Thomas Ward, 
American agent of Baring’s, Number 4, the home of 
Josiah Quincy the younger, and Number 5, that of 
Josiah Quincy the elder, are alike rich in historical asso¬ 
ciation. Then comes the Union Club, founded in 1863 
“for the encouragement of patriotic sentiment and 
opinion,” and finally, at the top, facing Bulfinch’s 
masterpiece, the Amory-Ticknor house, where for half a 
century George Ticknor, historian of Spanish literature, 
and correspondent of kings and queens, was arbiter of 
taste for literary America. The houses that look from 
their front windows upon this unique thoroughfare and 
Boston Common beyond, regard from the rear the Old 
Granary Burying Ground, where lie the bones of the 
parents of Benjamin Franklin; John Hancock and 
Samuel Adams, Elizabeth Vergoose, the author of the 
poems that bear the latter part of her name, and her 
publisher, Thomas Fleet. The officers and directors of 






Park Street V\[jyc> and Old 3 

Houghton MiiBin Company and the Old Corner Book 
Store are not unmindful of the standards of taste and 
the obligation to public service that the spirit of Old 
Park Street imposes. 

The early evolution of the publishing house of Hough¬ 
ton Mifflin Company is graphically presented in the 
chart on the following page. The Old Corner Book 
Store, founded in 1828 as Carter, Hendee & Company, 
became, successively, Allen & Ticknor, William D. Tick- 
nor, William D. Ticknor & Company, Ticknor, Reed & 
Fields, and finally the celebrated firm of Ticknor & 
Fields, which for eleven years carried on with great dis¬ 
tinction a combined publishing and bookselling business 
at the Old Corner. In i86< the retail business was sold 
to E. P. Dutton & Company, and the publishing busi¬ 
ness, under the continuing style of Ticknor & Fields, 
was removed to 124 Tremont Street. Thirteen years 
earlier, however, an enterprise was initiated which was 
to become the solid foundation upon which the rising 
fabric of a great publishing house was to be erected — 
to wit: the founding in 1852 of The Riverside Press by 
Mr. Henry O. Houghton. 



' 










§ 


The Old Corner Bookstore 

Carter, Hendee Ca 
I 1626 

a 

Allen & licknor 1632 


William D.Ticknor 
William D.Ticknor 6 Co. 

I 1833 

Ticknor, Reed & Fields 
I 1845 

Ticknor6 Fields 1854 Removed to 

I l24Tremont 

EF Dutton 6 Co. 1865 



H.O. Houghton 5 Co 
The Riverside Press 
= 1652 


St. corner of 
Hamilton PI. 1865 


AWiUiams 6 Co. 1869 


Cupples. Upham 6 Co. 

I 1883 

DamreVl & Upham 

I 1687 

The Old Comer Bookstore 
Incorporated 
I 1902 

Removed to 27 6 29 
Bromfield St 

1903 


Hurd 6 
Houohton 
il664 


Fields.Osdood 6 Ca I 

I 1868 I 

s £ r 

S £ a 

James R.0s6ood&Ca I / 

1871 I / 

Removed to Franklin | / 

Bld^.,cotFederal | / 

and EanklinSts i / 

1 1674 I / 

Removed to | # 

Cathedral Bld^., | / 

Winthrop Sq. i / 

y 

Hou6hton,^Qood 6Ca 
Winthrop oq. 1678 

Houdhton Mifflin 5 Co. 1 
4ParkSt 1880 | 

I James R 

I Os6ood6Co 
I 11881 

. c s 

%. I TicknorGCa 

I 1885 

lm,.«„Combinedwith 
= Houghton, 
^ 1 Mifnin 6 Co. 

Houghton Mifffin Company 1889 
%1 I 9 O 8 

2 Park Street 1923. 




'Cf 























Park Street and Old 


5 


The mutations of the firm of Ticknor & Fields, its 
final amalgamation with The Riverside Press and the 
Houghton interests under the style of Houghton, 
Mifflin & Company, and the later evolution of the Old 
Corner Book Store, can be seen in the chart. The two 
businesses of publishing and retail bookselling, which 
will be housed under one roof at Number 2 Park Street, 
are joint heirs to a century-old tradition. Each is under 
a sound and progressive management, and steadily 
achieving wider success and service. The new co¬ 
establishment at Number 2 Park Street will be a book 
center unique in America. There, if you are a book- 
lover, you may be sure of finding intelligent aid in the 
selection of the book you want; there, if you are an 
author, your manuscript will receive prompt and 
hospitable consideration, and after acceptance, if you 
are that kind of author, a fair contract, tasteful book¬ 
making, skillful advertising, vigorous salesmanship 
throughout the English-speaking world, and accurate 
and punctual accounting. If as a book-lover you merely 
wish to browse, or as an author, to discuss with experi- 
enced*advisers ideas not yet on paper, or ambitions yet 
unrealized, you will be equally welcome. 

The significant history of a publishing house, how¬ 
ever, lies not so much in the record of its changing 
control, its accessions, amalgamations, and removals, as 
in the roll-call of its authors. The enumeration of the 
frequenters of the publishing offices of Ticknor & 
Fields, Fields, Osgood & Company, James R. Osgood & 
Company, and Houghton Miffiin Company is an out¬ 
line history of American literature. To the back room, 
in the corner store on Washington Street, came famil¬ 
iarly, bringing the products of their pens, or simply, 
perhaps, for lettered conversation, Hawthorne, Emer¬ 
son, Dr. Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell, J. T. Trowbridge, 
Whittier, Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 



6 


Park Street and Old 


Ole Bull, Rufus Choate, H. D. Thoreau, Edwin Forrest, 
and E. P. Whipple. Dickens and Thackeray were enter¬ 
tained there during visits from overseas. Toward the 
end of the period, certain young men might have been 
descried among the frequenters, not always, perhaps, 
quite in the New England traditions; young Mr. William 
Dean Howells and Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and, a little 
later, two very breezy characters from the Wild West, 
over the lately completed Union Pacific Railroad, 
Bret Harte and Samuel M. Clemens. After the removal 
of the firm to Tremont Street, some of the older figures 
began dropping away, their places being taken by newer 
writers: Bayard Taylor, George Parsons Lathrop, and 
John Fiske. 



In Park Street, from 1880 on, the geographical dis¬ 
tribution of the authors of the house was widely in¬ 
creased. It was becoming more national, less narrowly 
of New England, and the morning mail was displacing 
the personal interview as the backbone of the day’s 
work. Yet to Park Street, to see their publisher, came 
Charles Eliot Norton, Henry James, Margaret Deland, 
Arthur Sherburne Hardy, Joel Chandler Harris, John 











Park Street JA(V'h7 and Old 


7 


Hay, William Wetmore Story, Lafcadio Hearn, 
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Julia Ward Howe, 
Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles Dudley Warner, Edward 
Rowland Sill, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Hopkinson 
Smith, Richard Grant White, Carl Schurz, and a trio of 
studious young men interested alike in history and 
politics — Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt, 
and Woodrow Wilson. 

With the development of the house, a policy was 
gradually formulated, the policy of providing sound 
books, if possible, of permanent rather than of merely 
temporary value, in every branch of letters. It chanced, 
however, that the men who have been concerned from 
year to year in shaping the lists of Houghton Mifflin 
Company have been strongly interested in the books of 
constructive thought and reflection, in history and 
biography, in the English essay, in poetry and fiction, 
and in books about nature and life in the open air. It 
has thus come about that Houghton Mifflin Company 
have published a particularly large number of notable 
books in these fields; to mention but a few names from 
hundreds — the works of such influential leaders of 
opinion as Charles W. Eliot, George Herbert Palmer, 
Nathaniel Shaler, Dr. George A. Gordon, Richard C. 
Cabot, Abraham Mitrie Rihbany, Henry Adams, and 
Charles Francis Adams. They have published the essays 
of Samuel McChord Crothers, Bliss Perry, Agnes 
Repplier, and Frances Lester Warner. In the field of 
nature and out-of-doors, the publications of the house 
include John Burroughs, Bradford Torrey, Dallas Lore 
Sharp, Olive Thorne Miller, John Muir, and Enos 
Mills. Among the American novelists and poets, in 
addition to those already mentioned, there are Kate 
Douglas Wiggin, Willa Sibert Cather, Henry Sydnor 
Harrison, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Mary Johnston, 
Elsie Singmaster, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Alice Brown, 























































Park Street and Old 


9 


William Vaughn Moody, Josephine Preston Peabody, 
Anna Hempstead Branch, Amy Lowell — to take but a 
few names out of hundreds that help to give distinction 
to the list of the house. 

Special attention has always been given to the publi¬ 
cation of the best biography, the most vividly human 
form of literature. The notable biographers of the 
house include Senator Lodge, ex-Senator Beveridge, 
whose epoch-making “Life of John Marshall” has been 
one of the most important publications of recent years, 
William Roscoe Thayer, Samuel Eliot Morison, and 
that past-master of what he pleases to call “Psychog- 
raphy,” Gamaliel Bradford. 

The house has been particularly fortunate in finding 
and publishing unusual books of autobiography and 
personal narrative. It has taken marked satisfaction in 
publishing such widely diversified volumes as Mary An- 
tin’s “The Promised Land,” Rihbany’s “A Far Jour¬ 
ney,” Carnegie’s Autobiography, Lansing’s “The Peace 
Negotiations,” and the incomparable “Education of 
Henry Adams.” Nor has it been backward in initiating 
important series of books, such as the American States¬ 
men Series, the American Commonwealths Series, the 
American Men of Letters Series, and the Cambridge 
Poets. In recent years the interests of the house have 
broadened, and it has published many important works 
in the fields of psychology, economics, politics, soci¬ 
ology, travel and exploration, science, and business and 
industrial management. The sporting interests of its 
directors are reflected in a lengthening line of lively 
books dealing with golf and angling. 

Houghton Mifflin Company and its predecessors 
were, even in the days before the copyright law, the first 
authorized American publishers of most of the great Vic¬ 
torian authors: De Quincey, Thackeray, George Eliot, 
Charles Reade and Dickens, Tennyson and Brown- 



lO 


Park Street and Old 


ing; and it is still the policy of the house to present to 
American readers the work of the most important con¬ 
temporary British authors. From the days of James T. 
Fields down, its “literary partners” have made frequent 
trips overseas and kept in close personal touch with for¬ 
eign writers. Notable among its valued contemporary 
authors from overseas are John Drinkwater, Hilaire 
Belloc, Havelock Ellis, Viscount Grey, Maud Diver, 
Gilbert Murray, Richard Pryce, Ian Hay Beith, Rafael 
Sabatini, Anne Douglas Sedgwick, George Trevelyan, 
and John Buchan. 

During the Civil War, Ticknor & Fields devoted no 
little portion of their energy to the publishing of books 
presenting the cause of the Union, including — to men¬ 
tion no other — the second series of Lowell’s “ Biglow 
Papers.” During the Great War, Houghton Mifflin 
Company did, as best they could, their bit. From 1913, 
v/ell before the outbreak of the war, when they issued 
Usher’s “Pan-Germanism,” exposing the German plan 
for world aggression, down to 1922, when they had the 
honor of publishing John Buchan’s authoritative “His¬ 
tory of the Great War,” they issued more than one 
hundred volumes of “war books,” carefully planned in 
consultation with the military and diplomatic authori¬ 
ties of the United States and the Allied countries to 
illumine the causes, progress, and issues of the War. 

The educational value of books brought out year by 
year by the predecessors of Houghton Mifflin Company 
early made evident a demand for school and college edi¬ 
tions of many titles. In 1882 an Educational Depart¬ 
ment was established to specialize in the development of 
school and college books. Its initial venture, the KltJer* 
fiiiUe literature Series, was designed to furnish in small 
handy volumes selections from the works of eminent 
writers with special reference to the needs and interests 
of young people. The selections, beginning with Long- 



Park Street jyV'h? and Old ii 

fellow’s '‘Evangeline,” were made with studious care 
and edited by Mr. Horace E. Scudder, at that time lit¬ 
erary adviser for the house. Perhaps Mr. Scudder’s most 
enduring monument is the Riverside Literature Series. 
Sincerely fond of children and observant of their mental 
development and interests, he had devoted much of his 
time to the study of educational theories, and had him¬ 
self written books for children which still live. No proj¬ 
ect like this had as yet been suggested or tried, but its 
immediate success demonstrated its usefulness. At first 
confined to American literature, the demand for selec¬ 
tions from other English writers straightway enlarged 
the scope of the series to include British masterpieces 
and selections from writers of other nationalities that 
had peculiar educational value. Before Mr. Scudder 
died, in 1902, he had seen this series undergo an expan¬ 
sion quite beyond his most far-reaching dreams. Many 
of the other leading educational publishers have since 
started similar series of English classics for schools. 
Historically the Riverside Literature Series marks a 
most important forward step in American educational 
method. 

To-day this series, familiarly known as the "R. L. S.,” 
is the largest and most varied of all collections of school 
classics. It contains four hundred and fifty volumes with 
more than thirty-three hundred complete literary selec¬ 
tions representing all types of literature, including the 
best examples of recent and contemporary fiction. It 
is intelligently edited and adapted to the needs of all 
classes of students, from the primary grades through the 
university. Starting with the modest sale of six thou¬ 
sand copies in 1882, the sale has increased year by year 
until’the annual sale is now well over one million copies. 

With this successful series as a nucleus, the Educa¬ 
tional Department gradually added other school and 
college books to its list. These were quickly recognized 


) 

> ) 

> ^ \ 
I > 




12 


Park Street ^ A(eyp and OA/ 


as valuable contributions in their respective subjects. It 
was early determined to concentrate upon and develop 
certain fields first, and to add to these by the similar 
development of other fields as the publicity and sales 
organization was built up to handle these new titles 
effectively. Editorial advisers, eminent specialists in 
their respective subjects, were selected for each of the 
fields thus to be developed, to guide the publishers in 
producing books most needed and to assist in perfecting 
them in every feasible way. This editorial “faculty” in¬ 
sures the maintenance of the highest professional ideals 
and standards in all of the textbooks undertaken for 
publication under their auspices. 

Among the notable series that have been developed 
under this editorial arrangement are The Riverside Text¬ 
books in Education^ edited by Professor Ell wood P. Cub- 
berley. Dean of the Department of Education, Leland 
Stanford Junior University; The Riverside Educational 
Monographs^ edited by Dr. Henry Suzzallo, President of 
the University of Washington; The Riverside History of 
the United States^ edited by Professor W. E. Dodd, of 
the University of Chicago; and texts in European his¬ 
tory, edited by Professor James T. Shotwell, of Colum¬ 
bia University. Other important series projected or ini¬ 
tiated are an Economic Series under the editorship of 
Professor Allyn A. Young, Harvard University; a Math¬ 
ematical Series edited by Professor J. W. Young, of 
Dartmouth College; books in Sociology edited by Pro¬ 
fessor W. F. Ogburn, Columbia University; and text¬ 
books in agriculture and rural education, edited by Pro¬ 
fessor George A. Works, of Cornell University. 

Significant as have been the publication of these im¬ 
portant series, by far the main business of the Educa¬ 
tional Department now is supplying basal textbooks for 
elementary schools, high schools, and colleges. The 
same standards of scholarship and teachability exacted 




Park Street and Old 13* 

of authors of books contributing to the various series have 
been rigorously applied in the judgment of all manu¬ 
scripts of textbooks submitted for publication. Mem¬ 
bers of the editorial staff, familiar through teaching and 
supervisory experience or through first-hand study of 
schools and colleges, endeavor to keep in touch with the 
development of educational methods, ideals, and tend¬ 
encies throughout the country, so as to make each new 
textbook a distinct contribution to its field. In the pres¬ 
entation and sale of these textbooks the highest stand¬ 
ards of professional conduct have been set and willingly 
maintained by the sales organization. 

In common with other educational publishers, Hough¬ 
ton Mifflin Company have shared in the remarkable 
growth and development of the educational system of 
this country. They have had the satisfaction of watch¬ 
ing the increasingly wide distribution of its books until 
they are now extensively used in every large city and 
state in this country, and in increasing volume in other 
countries as well — playing their part in the training and 
equipment of young minds the world over. 

Although the executive, the general, and the educa¬ 
tional departments of Houghton Mifflin Company are 
moving into the new quarters at Number 2 Park Street, 
one department of the business, the Private Library 
Department, will remain at the old address. Number 4. 
This department, which was founded two score years 
ago, has as its aim the fulfillment of the words of Cicero, 
“To add a library to a house is to give that house a 
soul.” Beginning with definitive illustrated editions of 
the works of the great New England authors, Emerson, 
Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, Al¬ 
drich, and Thoreau, it has added to them in later years 
complete, lavishly illustrated sets of the works of Bret 
Harte, Kate Douglas Wiggin, John Burroughs, John 



14 


Park Street and Old 


Muir, John Fiske, the American Statesmen Series, the 
“Life of John Marshall,” the complete works of Scott, 
Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, and William Words¬ 
worth, “The Children’s Hour,” and “The Worlds 
Story”; Mrs. Humphry Ward, and, within the last 
year, the novels and stories of Ian Hay, the collected 
works of Lafcadio Hearn, and John Buchan s History 
of the Great War.” The representatives of the Depart¬ 
ment are always ready to give advice and assistance in 
the building of the home library. 



The manufacturing department of the house contin¬ 
ues in Cambridge at The Riverside Press, so called from 
its position on the banks of the smooth-sliding Charles. 
The original buildings, erected before the establishment 
of Houghton Mifflin Company in 1852, have been added 
to until they now constitute one of the largest and most 
modern plants in New England. 

The founder of the Press took for his motto the 
French phrase “ Tout Men ou rien^' which may be freely 
translated, “Do it well or not at all.” The ideal of the 
Press has always been that of quality — the best and 
most enduring materials and the most careful workman¬ 
ship at every stage of composition, proof-reading, elec¬ 
trotyping, presswork, and binding. From the point of 
view of fine book-making. Riverside’s most distinguished 
achievement is the series of Riverside Press Editions, ex- 






Park Street and Old 15 

ecuted under the direction of Bruce Rogers, which have 
a world-wide reputation as outstanding masterpieces of 
the printing art. 

This brief summary of the history and organization of 
the house of Houghton Mifflin Company is offered to its 
friends, authors, booksellers, and bookbuyers, in the 
hope that it may lead to still closer and more under¬ 
standing relations, — more effective cooperation in the 
writing, production, and distribution of good books. 


Boston^ March^ 1923* 




^ ^ BOOK gossip ^ ^ 

Piper is a monthly bulletin of 
book news, published by Houghton 
Mifflin Company, for all who are 
interested in books and their authors. 

In it will be found comments and 
gossip about new books and contempo¬ 
rary authors, with some digression into 
the past. Occasionally, an issue is de¬ 
voted exclusively to one subject. There 
have been recently a Biography Pipery a 
History Piper, and a Poetry Piper. Any 
of them will be sent to you on request, 
or if you would like to receive copies of 
the Piper regularly, drop a line to 



T.>vA OV 


HOUGHTON 

MIFFLIN 

COMPANY 

PARK 

STREET 

BOSTON 







































